


Soft Rains and the Smell of the Ground

by bending_sickle



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Everybody Lives, Gen, Post-Battle of Five Armies, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2750093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bending_sickle/pseuds/bending_sickle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fíli and Tauriel sit together. (Petrichor: The scent of rain on dry earth, or the scent of dust after rain.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soft Rains and the Smell of the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _There Will Come Soft Rains_ (1920) by Sara Teasadle

It rains after the battle, heavy sheets of water that wipe the blood and grime away, off of the dead lying in the fields and the wounded who are well enough to stand. When the rain stops and the earth dries, they will burn the dead – another Azanulbizar – and the ashes will make a new desolation. For now, the heavy raindrops – fat as fish eyes – continue to fall. Blood runs into pools, mixing with the earth, and if anything grows there in the years to come, it will carry the fallen in its leaves.

All around Fíli, the sound of the rain pelting the tents like a hail of pebbles fills the air, making the wounded groan. All except for Thorin, who makes no sound at all. Fíli knows this, knows that Thorin has not stirred once since he was brought in from the battlefield, because he is standing just outside the tent.   Kíli is inside as well, wounded just enough for Fíli to refuse to let him stand, sitting where Fíli left him before he stepped out of the tent for a breath of rain-soaked air, and because he could not bear to sit there any longer, staring at his uncle’s face and finding no sign of waking.

He sees Tauriel approach, looking for Kíli no doubt. When she sees him she stops, not stepping below the tent’s roof. The rain curls the long ends of her hair and darkens her clothes to a deep pine green, save for the black stains of orc blood, and the equally dark blood of her kin and his and mortal man. Fíli likes to think that those stains are from her healing the wounded, but knows that a few, at least, are not. Would that the battle’s tide had turned sooner, and they had never fought against each other in the first place.

“Has he awoken?” she asks, inquiring after Thorin first as a matter of diplomacy.

“No,” says Fíli. He glances back over his shoulder at the darkness under the tent, but nothing has changed. Neither Kíli nor Thorin have moved, though Kíli meets his eye – tiredly, as if on the edge of sleep – when Fíli looks in. “Kíli is inside,” he says with a roll of his shoulder towards the tent behind him. “He’s all right.”

Tauriel smiles at this. “As are you.”

“I can’t complain.” He means to sound flippant, but it comes out serious. He has his own share of wounds, but at least he can stand. At least he still lives.

Tauriel peers at him, catching his tone and the hurt beneath it. She sees his concern – buried deep but there, for keen elven eyes to see – and knows it would do him more harm than good to continue at his kin’s bedside. “Walk with me,” she suggests. “There is hot gruel a short way from here.”

Fíli hesitates, but eventually nods and steps out into the rain, dropping the tent flap that serves as a door behind him, keeping the worst of the weather out. He should not have left it open so long, he chastises himself. He takes a step after Tauriel then turns right around, popping his head inside the tent, a comforting word on his lips that dies when he sees Kíli has fallen asleep in his hair. Thorin has not moved. He stands frozen at the entrance. He should not leave. They should not be alone.

Tauriel touches his shoulder lightly. “There is nothing you can do, Fíli,” she says gently. “They have been seen to, and need rest. That is all.” She does not tell him that he, too, needs rest, for fear that he will dig his heels in. “Come,” she encourages, her fingers tightening on his shoulder before letting go.

Fíli follows Tauriel to a large tent, hovering at the entrance in the rain as she collects two steaming bowls, then follows her again to a smaller tent. He only realizes it is the elven guards’ tent when Tauriel opens a low wooden chest with her boot and pulls out a thick travelling blanket. She offers this and the bowl she kept in her hand – the other she set down on the floor – to Fíli.

They eat in silence, the blanket over both their shoulders, and listen to the rain fall. Eventually, the hammering over their heads peters out and stops altogether. When they step outside, they find the world changed, the greens shining brighter, the raindrops clinging to the tent roofs like diamonds.

Fíli takes a deep breath and finds the smell of death has lifted. “It smells clean,” he says, looking out onto the battlefield peppered with low tents such as theirs.

Tauriel nods. “It smells of life,” she agrees, “and new beginnings.”

Fíli glances up at her, at this elf who that morning had been his enemy, but who has shown him more kindness than he had ever thought possible, and smiles.


End file.
